maandag 29 augustus 2011
woensdag 24 augustus 2011
Discovering East Africa Part 2
Chimpansees
In tegenstelling tot hun grotere, bamboo-knagende broertjes en zusjes, de Gorilla, houden Chimps meer van jonge blaadjes die helemaal boven in de boom groeien. Na anderhalf uur door het bos/oerwoud lopen waren we de eerste groep (4 italianen, wij en onze gids Alex) die de Chimps gevonden hadden, een groepje van 5 die bij het zien van ons de grond verliet en op 10m in de boom ging zitten.
Een leuke ervaring, ook omdat je ruim 4 uur in het bos spendeert en naast het zoeken naar Chimps ook heel veel ander leven tegenkomt. Ook is het wat minder gereguleerd dan de Gorilla's, wat betekend dat het vinden van de Chimps een sport op zich is.
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Coffee Cups
Our brother Tony had given Evelien four coffee-cup candles for her birthday, last year September. During our trip we are using the candles throughout to give us the necessary light in the evenings. Although the candles burn damn long (more than 12 hours is not an exception), we finally managed to have two cups in 'operating mode'. This means that every morning the freshly brewed coffee is taken from proper, porcelain coffee cups :-) Thanks Tony!
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Kigali
Currently we are in Kigali, and although we didn't spend to much time here, it feels like getting home a bit. A relaxing atmosphere and due to Simon's work at Bralirwa we are meeting some old friends. We have spend one night on the only camping of Kigali (parked on the parking-lot because the bridge to the grass wouldn't hold the LandCruiser) and currently we are staying at Hotel Milles Collines (yes, thé hotel from the movie 'Hotel Rwanda') to get some things sorted out. General plan is to head to Musanze to track the Golden Monkeys and then head for Burundi. As we have got wireless internet again in Rwanda, We'll keep you posted!
dinsdag 9 augustus 2011
Discovering Kenya – the full version
Where to begin… In our third week, currently we are in Bujugali Falls (Jinja) in Uganda, also called the adventure capital of East Africa. But let us go back three weeks, to give you a bit of a flavour of our trip to date.
Friday 15 July both Evelien and myself had our last working day. The first days of our holiday we used to pack everything we owned in Nairobi, which took us about our days. In the meantime Danielle and Adam arrived, they will join us for the first two weeks. Between the packing we joined D&A for some tourist visits and we finally had dinner at Carnivore.
On Wednesday we headed for Nanyuki and Mt. Kenya and after meeting our guide for Mt. Kenya (Peter) we joined Ameet and Jannie in Nanyuki for dinner. In summary we reached peak Lenana (4987m) in three days. We had some minor problems with the altitude, but this didn’t stop us from walking up. The last part to the peak, we managed to concur 15cm of snow and we were very lucky to be the only group on the peak with sunrise! After our journey, we stayed with Jannie in Nanyuki to rest a bit and to make a plan for the next couple of days.
Next destination is Lake Bogoria and Lake Baringo. Both lakes are volcanic and are famous for their birdlife. Lake Bogoria is quite small and is a salt water lake, nice campsite next to the water and a stream so we fresh water. We saw the largest population of flamingo’s we have ever seen, hundreds of thousands of flamingo’s all eating and walking around. Good pictures with only flamingo’s.
Then headed for Lake Baringo, a bigger fresh water lake next to Bogoria. Again, camping next to the water but a bit more busy with overland trucks and other people. A boat trip on the lake made sure we saw many fish eagles and the fish eagle as well. The rain kept us in a village on the island for more than an hour with Chai Tea. On the way back we bought our dinner from a fishermen.
Heading to Kisumu, eventually, we stopped at Kakameka Forest. This used to be part of the tropical rainforest covering the whole of middle Africa, but now it is quite a small park (240sq km). In the evenings we still had a lot of rain, but during the day the weather was good. Salomon guided us through the forest and we even came across a viper snake :-P
In Kisumu we met Eric and Shadrack, who brought the Landrover to Kisumu which A&D will use the next week to travel back to Nairobi. The Eric's home is right on the shores of Lake Victoria about two hours from Kisumu. His mother and cousins are still living there and waited for us to arrive. A delicious meal and good conversation and we fell asleep in our tents next to the three homes on the compound. After a light breakfast we headed out for the lake, to take our bath and buy some fresh fish for lunch and dinner. Also, this was the last night that we were joined by A&D as they are heading to Masai Mara and Mt. Suswa tomorrow.
Decided to go to Sipi Falls, Uganda on the foot of Mt. Elgon. We ended up here because it was a good 5 hours drive including a border crossing with our Kenyan registered car . All good and smooth to be honest. In Tororo (barely an hour in Uganda!) we had our first encounter with corrupt police while we have been living in East Africa. Buying a newspaper we are fined for reckless driving and waiting at a dangerous spot (on the road in stead of next to the road). 80,000 shillings and 30 minutes of our time, the threat of being arrested and take to the local jail, but we were good again to hit the road to Sipi Falls. After Sipi Falls decided to go to Jinja for some white river rafting on the Nile. The route afterwards is currently not decided yet, but likely to head for Kampala afterwards.
We’ll keep you posted!
Love, Evelien & Simon
Friday 15 July both Evelien and myself had our last working day. The first days of our holiday we used to pack everything we owned in Nairobi, which took us about our days. In the meantime Danielle and Adam arrived, they will join us for the first two weeks. Between the packing we joined D&A for some tourist visits and we finally had dinner at Carnivore.
On Wednesday we headed for Nanyuki and Mt. Kenya and after meeting our guide for Mt. Kenya (Peter) we joined Ameet and Jannie in Nanyuki for dinner. In summary we reached peak Lenana (4987m) in three days. We had some minor problems with the altitude, but this didn’t stop us from walking up. The last part to the peak, we managed to concur 15cm of snow and we were very lucky to be the only group on the peak with sunrise! After our journey, we stayed with Jannie in Nanyuki to rest a bit and to make a plan for the next couple of days.
Next destination is Lake Bogoria and Lake Baringo. Both lakes are volcanic and are famous for their birdlife. Lake Bogoria is quite small and is a salt water lake, nice campsite next to the water and a stream so we fresh water. We saw the largest population of flamingo’s we have ever seen, hundreds of thousands of flamingo’s all eating and walking around. Good pictures with only flamingo’s.
Then headed for Lake Baringo, a bigger fresh water lake next to Bogoria. Again, camping next to the water but a bit more busy with overland trucks and other people. A boat trip on the lake made sure we saw many fish eagles and the fish eagle as well. The rain kept us in a village on the island for more than an hour with Chai Tea. On the way back we bought our dinner from a fishermen.
Heading to Kisumu, eventually, we stopped at Kakameka Forest. This used to be part of the tropical rainforest covering the whole of middle Africa, but now it is quite a small park (240sq km). In the evenings we still had a lot of rain, but during the day the weather was good. Salomon guided us through the forest and we even came across a viper snake :-P
In Kisumu we met Eric and Shadrack, who brought the Landrover to Kisumu which A&D will use the next week to travel back to Nairobi. The Eric's home is right on the shores of Lake Victoria about two hours from Kisumu. His mother and cousins are still living there and waited for us to arrive. A delicious meal and good conversation and we fell asleep in our tents next to the three homes on the compound. After a light breakfast we headed out for the lake, to take our bath and buy some fresh fish for lunch and dinner. Also, this was the last night that we were joined by A&D as they are heading to Masai Mara and Mt. Suswa tomorrow.
Decided to go to Sipi Falls, Uganda on the foot of Mt. Elgon. We ended up here because it was a good 5 hours drive including a border crossing with our Kenyan registered car . All good and smooth to be honest. In Tororo (barely an hour in Uganda!) we had our first encounter with corrupt police while we have been living in East Africa. Buying a newspaper we are fined for reckless driving and waiting at a dangerous spot (on the road in stead of next to the road). 80,000 shillings and 30 minutes of our time, the threat of being arrested and take to the local jail, but we were good again to hit the road to Sipi Falls. After Sipi Falls decided to go to Jinja for some white river rafting on the Nile. The route afterwards is currently not decided yet, but likely to head for Kampala afterwards.
We’ll keep you posted!
Love, Evelien & Simon
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